Premier Peter Malinauskas issues plea for national productivity growth

Premier Peter Malinauskas has issued a blunt cost-of-living admission and plea for Australia to pass on better living standards to the next generation.

• Upper Spencer Gulf’s green transition

Premier Peter Malinauskas has used a public forum in Whyalla – an industrial city infamously branded in 2012 as heading for a wipe-out – to issue a plea for Australia to improve productivity or fail to pass on improved living standards to the next generation.

In an impassioned speech about his plan to reindustrialise the Upper Spencer Gulf with green energy, Mr Malinauskas said growing productivity was critical to easing the cost-of-living crisis and boosting prosperity.

Upper Spencer Gulf. Whyalla Office of Hydrogen power SA Opening. Picture: Ben Clark

“We talk about a cost of living crisis on a frequent basis and, more often than not, you get a politician saying: ‘We’re going to try and reduce the price of petrol. We’re gonna try and reduce the price of groceries’, and nine times out of ten, it’s all bullshit,” he told 420 people at the Sunday night public forum.

“Because I don’t control the price of petrol. The prime minister doesn’t control the price of petrol, any more than he controls the price of Weet-Bix. There are things that we can do at the margins. But it’s largely up to markets because we’re not communist. We have a market-based economy.”

Premier Peter Malinauskas at the Whyalla Office of Hydrogen power SA Opening. Picture: Ben Clark

Mr Malinauskas said he was not talking about bleeding small business dry but improving productivity by boosting people’s quality of work, the type of work and the outcome from every unit of labour deployed.

“That’s how we grow people’s wealth. That’s how we improve our economy. That’s how we generate prosperity for people. Now, the reason why you don’t hear politicians talk about this very much is because it’s hard and it takes time. It doesn’t get fixed in one election cycle,” he said.

The Premier speaking at the Major Economic Summit in Whyalla at the Westland Hotel Motel. Picture: Ben Clark

“But we’ve got to start doing this as a country. Otherwise, we’re gonna find ourselves in a situation where we have failed the basic test, which is to pass on to our kids a better standard of living than the one that we have.”

The Whyalla public forum, attended by 420 people at the Westland Hotel Motel, was the first of a three-day major economic summit in the Upper Spencer Gulf. Forums will be held at Port Augusta on Monday and Port Pirie on Tuesday.

Attendees at the Upper Spencer Gulf Major Economic Summit in Whyalla. Picture: Ben Clark

Mr Malinauskas is spruiking a State Prosperity Project, aiming for SA to be a world leader in renewable hydrogen energy, green steel and copper production.

This is underpinned by a 260 megalitre desalination plant and 600km pipeline to the state’s north, forecast to add $5.2bn to gross state product and create 4200 jobs, primarily by unlocking BHP’s vast copper mining expansion.